


Lelouch: that one smart highschool kid that realises he's really only subpar when he attends college. but like. with his geass.

by cereal_whore



Category: Code Geass, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Cryptic Eldritch Horror but it's really more of a mild inconvenience than anything., Existential Crisis, Gen, Unhinged Lelouch, aizawa teaches with bill nye vcr tapes, class 1-a: utterly unphased by lelouch's superiority complex because bakugou exists., every once in a while i make memes and post them at the bottom of the chaps., everyone accepts lelouch's questionable morality bc they think he's from texas yeehaw, i can't write but i sure can bullshit, kaminari: exists. lelouch: rivAlZ?/?, lelouch & bakugou: pretentious pricks gang, lelouch staring at kayama: ...milly????, lelouch's one fear: jirou, todoroki: omg ur dad w/a public image aLso has questionable morals?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:53:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22806634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cereal_whore/pseuds/cereal_whore
Summary: Lelouch, seconds away from being impaled by the lance of Cornelia's knightmare, is saved through plot-armour and the convenience of C.C. and her godly influences that will remain undefined as the author promptly ignores plot consistency and rationalisation. As he's transported to another reality as a last-ditch effort to save him, Lelouch unfortunately encounters the existence of quirks that are easily more powerful than his Geass, Kaminari, and a society where he can experience being a normal person without the burdens of war or a rebellion.And though Lelouch knows he has to find a way home, return to the rebellion, return to Nunnally; the longer he stays in this world, the more he doesn't want to leave.--in other words i'm in a constant state of fight or fight when it comes to lelouch's whole existence and i was like "this man's from texas" u know
Relationships: C.C. & Lelouch Lamperouge | Lelouch vi Britannia, Lelouch & Class 1-A, lelouch/having a sense of normalcy
Comments: 45
Kudos: 128





	1. lelouch and his Unfortunate First Meeting with Kaminari.

**Author's Note:**

> i didn't think this through.
> 
> okay for background info:  
> \- code geass is a world where through various/multiple wars, there are monarchies/dominating countries/republics/kingdoms etc, one being britannica, who took over japan and turned it into 'area 11', so ppl r super racist against them. lelouch is part japanese/royal blood of britannica, but was banished as a kid with his disabled sister and thought dead by his family.  
> \- cc is a green haired girl who granted lelouch geass. she's like. alien. otherwordly. sorta god-gifted  
> \- geass is a power that lelouch can use on a person only once in their life, and it baxcially allows him to control them to do whatever he wants on his command.

Lelouch knows that if gods’ sense of humanity exists, then through obligation he’d be stabbed to the bedrock of hell with the end of a rusted fork suitable for beggars to scrape their empty plates with. 

Therefore, this logic when combined with his previous memory of being literally thrown across the border of death both metaphorically and physically as his Knightmare was steamrolled over by Cornelia’s , and the fact that he’s being confronted by a teenager who dropped his ice cream against his cheek, he _has_ to be in purgatory. He must’ve died- he _saw_ a lance taller than his ego directed straight through his ejection seat, aimed to take off his head like a paper doll. 

That does not explain why when he opened his eyes he’s surrounded by three kids and something cold on his cheek, lying flat on a warm ground probably heated by satan’s flaming pits.

He focuses his vision. One of the kids holding a suspiciously empty ice cream cone. 

_"Whoa_ ,” says the kid who’s now crunching on the ice cream cone, and Lelouch squirms, realising that his crumbs are falling onto him. And Lelouch doesn’t even know the kid, and rarely does he feel such rage that oppresses the stems of his analytical thoughts, with any inclusion of Nunnally being by default excluded by the norm of his behaviourism-

But Lelouch has an indescribable and primal rage to uppercut this kid to God’s welcome mat.

“Goth kids still exist?”

The girl next to the boy, having a whole ‘lowkey clown’ vibe going on, appears mildly offended.

The _half-bird cosplayer next to him has the same expression, despite having literally no features to define one._

He narrows his eyes. They certainly must be rich- privileged. He just has to glance at their coordinated uniforms and lack of distinct fear against society for their birthright to be so brash in public. 

Public. He quickly leaps onto his feet, recoiling slightly as a partially melted lob of ice cream slops against the brick floor beneath his feet, and he grimaces, wiping away the residue against his jaw.

"Damn, you really gonna waste that?" Murmurs the blonde boy.

"Lick it off the floor, then." Grumbles the girl next to him.

Lelouch glances around. Everything appears civil enough. Not hellish. 

But not really.

It appears normal. Laidback. _Strange_. And what was it? He was in the middle of nearly being folded into an undignified toasted sandwich in the back of some mecha because he miscalculated his dear sister Cornelia’s mouvements, and ultimately entrapped himself in a situation as Zero?

 _C.C. told me it’d be okay._ Somewhere, in the midst of nowhere, C.C. mentioned it’d be all okay. That she’d save him, because she needs her revenge carried out, and also because literally if he died there’d be an automatic issue since he was sort of in the middle of engaging in a literal war downtown. 

But just glancing around, he’s clearly not in Area 11 anymore, nor is on a battleground. 

So no, everything is _not_ okay. Fucking C.C.

“He looks lost.”

And he wonders if ignorant Britannians are suddenly incapable of object permanence because their egos engulfed the entirety of their frontal lobes. Do they not realise he can still hear them?

“Kaminari, shut the fuck up.”

At least there’s one intellect. The girl with extended earlobes? Which is somewhat strange? Then again, one of them is wearing a bird head. 

“He doesn’t look Japanese,” croaks the bird, and Lelouch is simultaneously enraged and disturbed, even more so since he’s unsure if the first emotion is really just backlash from the second. 

He’s never really been mistaken for Japanese, despite his heritage, but Britannians are always picking a fight and he’s prepared to-

 _But they’re speaking Japanese._ And so casually. As if unafraid they’d be discovered by Britannians, afraid of others’ discrimination. 

“I mean. Maybe he just looks weird because he’s dressed like he’s cosplaying as Westley.”

“The _Princess Bride_ character?” Remarks the girl, whose incredulous tone is akin to one screaming to the pits of Lelouch’s brain, because hey, _same_ . “I mean. Sure he’s wearing skintight leggings and a suit that suggests edgelord who’s into BDSM, but like... _Westley_?”

And he lost whatever train of thought she was going down upon. He glances downwards. Right. He’s wearing his costume as Zero, with his mask abandoned earlier after it shattered and he ripped it off in the privacy of his Knightmare to clear his vision. 

“You think he understands us? I feel like if he understands Japanese, then he would’ve curbstomped us for everything you guys’ just said,'' proclaims the birdhead. And he’s partially right, because Lelouch frankly does want to do just that, just that he’ll do it even when he doesn’t understand what they’ve said. 

_C.C. I don’t know if you can hear me right now,_ he muses, attempting to rationalise his tone so that C.C. doesn’t feel indirectly turned off by his anger and threatening implications of murder, _but_ what _did you get me into_.

After closing his eyes to calm his sight of such a strange and _peaceful_ landscape blotched by three kids who are blatantly judging him and smeared him with ice cream, he opens them to see the _same_ kids openly and unashamedly staring back at him, with ⅓ concern and at least 98% curiosity. He glares, wary. Better to observe than speak. But it’d be _weird_ if he remained mute. Therefore, he approaches them, and the girl with questionable body modifications appears almost smug by this “Kaminari’s” awkward aversion of eyes. Well, he feels that too. “Hello, do you happen to know where the fight’s going on?”

“I- what?”

“Kacchan. He must mean Bakugou,” responds Kaminari, who appears to rather easily get over any sense of embarrassment. “Do you mean Bakuguo? He’s our pal.”

“Our existential poison,” nods the bird cosplayer, whose mask is admirably realistic, considering how the material must be constructed of something light and unlike their typical mecha metals. The contraption blinking his eyes and moving his beak appears to have the same fluidity of a living animal. Lelouch then takes a genuine second to digest his amiable(?) statement.

“Yo, you looking for Bakugou Katsuki?” Digresses the girl.

“No, the rebellion? Zero?” And even if Britannians are ignorant on political matters with little immediate impact, they should’ve definitely heard of his alias. _Of course, unless if I’m not_ in _Britannia._

The girl stares at him. “Oh. I get it.”

“I don’t.”

“Kaminari, you don’t get a lot of things,” snarks the girl, and Lelouch supposes that perhaps she’s of the better breed of the privileged. “Underground wrestling ring, amirite?”

“What.” 

“What.” Lelouch promptly hates that he spoken in unison with the blonde idiot that speaks and probably thinks similarly to Rivalz. 

And this is irritating. Going in circles because clearly he’ll get nothing out of this conversation. Better to lure one away and use his Geass on them to get information out of them, rather than trivially surf for information.

Probably the girl. Or the bird. He turns to the bird, discreetly observing him, only for his gaze to land on his sneakers. There’s a shadow. A shadow that doesn’t match the feet it’s under. 

The shadow beneath Cosplayer’s feet. 

It blinks.

Lelouch blinks back. _Oh my god._

“Oh, sorry.” Grunts the host of the _malleable shadow_. “He doesn’t bite.” Lelouch glances at the other two kids, who appear indifferent to the shadow’s independent characterisation.

“Oh, you’re quirkless, I’m assuming? You seem pretty. Not okay.”

_And C.C., where the_ fuck _am I_. He has to return. While he salvaged his life because he needs himself as the lasting chess piece before he can call checkmate on Britannia, call checkmate on his damned father, call checkmate on every spiteful conclusion in society that only serves to dig others’ in a ditch of apathy and dogshit-

Being here serves no purpose.

And there are shadows who have no concept of what they’re supposed to be. 

“I’m sorry, I think I’m confused,” he grits out, though, with ease, slipping on a persona.

“Don’t worry, we all are.” And _what the hell are up with these people_. “I’m Kaminari, this is Jirou, and that’s Tokoyami, and that’s Dark Shadow.”

The shadow waves.

The shadow fucking waved.

“Don’t worry about D.S.,” Kaminari begins with a flippant wave of his hand, and Lelouch, easily deducing that D.S. stands for ‘Dark Shadow’, wonders exactly where C.C. placed him for this to be in the norm. “He’s pretty chill for the most part. Sometimes feral. You know. Like Roombas.”

Lelouch blinks. “A ‘Roomba’?” He has no idea what those species are. Perhaps a gouvernment mutated animal- a species of some sort. He’s clearly not in Britannia anymore. Maybe he’s in another country? It’s not like his world _isn’t_ twisted with layers of realities and humanely incomprehendable laws of nature.

“I mean. Essentially, yeah,” Kaminari shrugs. 

He has to still be on earth. Everything _characterises_ itself as Earth. And after a year of solidifying his image as Zero, he’s already confident in his ability to stabilise in any strange situation: magic exists, so really, the realms of possibility are beyond his range of beliefs. Maybe he’s in a different time. Realm. Reality? “What year is it?”

“It’s twenty-twenty?” _And that’s only four years ahead of my time._ No way. Four years ahead of his time and people have slimy shadows? “I mean,” and Kaminari stares at him once more, and Lelouch, having no trouble to ease himself into a casual posture, doesn’t like the confidence in his gaze. Especially since it’s paired with a lack of hostility. It’s not naivety he’s witnessing: it’s something else that Lelouch cannot detect. He inwardly scowls. “Clearly, you’re still in two-thousand-ten with that hair-”

“Kaminari, you look like someone overused the Instagram Savannah filter over a picture of a balding cat who committed toaster bath. Shut the fuck up,” Jirou, a clearly terrifying figure who’s afraid of zero god, doesn’t even look up from the miniature tablet in her palm. 

And Lelouch _knows_ he’s intelligent: is aware of his strengths to a necessary degree in his line of work.

Yet he cannot locate a singular brain cell that describes the nothingness in his mind when she spoke those words.

* * *

Lelouch learned many things: especially the laws of this universe that definitely has no correlation to his own (and he _needs_ to return: because he’s already learned time stops for no one, and his universe is not kind to individual justice or what’s fair, only clocking out on its own concept of them. 

He wonders how Nunnally is). 

One. Quirks exist. If anything, many of them appear to be _biological_ . Natural. He witnessed Tokoyami eat an unusually sweet dessert- apparently a staple christened _Taiyaki_ , ironically given its shape and Tokoyami’s species(?), with a line of teeth inside of his beak.

Teeth. Inside his beak. He’s definitely not wearing a mask. 

And then there’s Kaminari, who’s a literal charger port for their phones, which appears to be both a devolved yet advanced version of his world’s, and Lelouch has a suspicious theory that his ‘quirk’ fries his brain every single time it’s used. The hole in his head is big, much like his mouth. 

So quirks vary- he sees it through their little uses that they claim aren’t technically legal, but that no police officer is going to ticket them for Kaminari tampering with the pony nickel-ride outside of a rundown Family Mart. And when Lelouch asked about Tokoyami and his quirk usage, unsure of what’s really the boy’s quirk, all Jirou said was: “either they’re discriminating against Tokoyami or D.S., and that’s pretty racist, my dude,” and that was the end of that conversation.

It’s terrifying, and almost disconcerting, how powerful the _majority_ of the population appears to be. If anything, if he didn’t know that he’s technically touched by the gods, that he’s _contracted_ with super beings of the human race, he would’ve felt almost inferior.

Lelouch however, isn’t stupid to place the theory that perhaps, there are people with quirks who surpass his power (and it’s simply through the _genetic pool_ \- mutations. Simple human _nature_ developed past a god-granted mercy for him), and, a thought he doesn’t want to delve into, is that maybe the normal human being here closes the gap between their species and the gods of his world by a large step.

He doesn’t want to think about it, but he’d be a poor player for doing so.

Then there are quirks that appear to spawn from sorcery, something that appears impossible to be explained by human physiology or natural phenomenons. 

Apparently, Kaminari had a friend, Shinsou, who could mind-control anyone after hearing their voice. But he can do it more than once, something Lelouch’s Geass can’t.

Lelouch’s god-granted power is subpar in this realm: something considerably _inefficient_ in comparison to perhaps an average quirk-user. 

And that’s just who he is. He’s a normal being by technicality in this world.

Another quality of this world is that race-mixing appears normal, while discrimination, which of course remains as an existing factor in any society, isn’t to the degree of current segregation in hi world. Kaminari, Jirou and probably Tokoyami are all Japanese, and in fact, _Japan_ still exists, something he learned just by listening to their random chattering.

“C’mon, Lelouch, try this.”

And Lelouch is _tired_. It’s been less than twenty minutes of just following these students around, engaging politely in conversation with them to gather more information on this world (it doesn’t take him long to easily assume with relief that he’s simply in a different universe, not necessarily a different time or variation of his own), and following them around.

Everything’s so drastically _peaceful_ , almost underwhelming, almost terrifying.

Lelouch does not catch a break. He knows that, and he enforces that. 

If anything, the children appear to have a similar degree of excitement in their lives, since more than once, they’d mention a specific kidnapping of their classmate, random near-death-experiences through jokes, and at least one or two concerning statements that if they were taken out by a meteorite at this moment, they’d be “vibing” with it. 

Maybe they’re not as desensitised the way Lelouch’s campus is. They certainly are considerably apathetic to inhumanity, but not in the way that it’s ignorant. Instead, they view it like him. It makes more sense, when they claimed they came from a hero school. He’s certainly not a hero himself, perhaps the opposite, but seeing them, it explains a lot of their similarities. 

_A hero school._

It almost sounds foolish- childish. Until he starts comparing a hero to a similar position as a police officer, or a typical law enforcer that isn’t corrupt or racist in his world, but as a guy doing their job. 

In a world where people exist and have superhuman powers or not, maybe the concept of heroes isn’t foolish- if anything, it appears necessary. 

It’s been twenty minutes of being dragged around to random food stalls, actually helping Kaminari hold his drugstore bags, and listening to their nonsense yet helpful chatter, that he decides he doesn’t dislike them as much as he originally thought. 

“Lelouch, you seem. Very behind on like. You know. Common knowledge,” Kaminari chortles, and Lelouch does _not_ want to hear that from someone like him. “Like, you seem smart, my dude, and despite the fact that you adapt quickly and don’t seem surprised by anything- the questions you ask, damn they make me think you’re from a whole other world!”

And Lelouch has a quality of underestimating others- believing he’s smarter. And even if he is smarter, that doesn’t meant others are dumb, which is general logic that he tends to overlook. 

Lelouch glances at the boy, and sees the genuine friendliness in his grin, the feature as candid as the calculative distance in Kaminari’s eyes.

Of course he’d come off as strange, asking things that would appear normal in this world. Asking the normality of the quirks, the range of them, about their friends and what their quirks may be. Asking about the nationalities, about what’s the political atmosphere. 

“H-yeah.” Lelouch chuckles. “I came from the states,” he grins, while praying in a stream of curses at C.C. in his head that at least she sent him to a place where geographically, the United States exist. If not, then fuck it. He’ll just ask them to guess where he came from, and jump on the first answer they say, claiming ‘states’ is slang for that country’s name. “My parents are originally from Japan, and I wanted to come here to see what it’s like.”

“Oh, really? Like the U.S.? Which state?” Chirrups Jirou, who’s currently rocking slowly on the seesaw of the playground they brought him to, after they realised he had zero sense of direction and absolutely no idea what he was looking for.

Well, it’s not like he can ask them to lead him to a nonexistent rebellion that he’s supposed to be trumping at the moment, so might as well enjoy the weirdly and anxiously placid environment of _not_ a war-torn realm. Especially since C.C. isn’t answering. She’s reliable only at her own pace, and therefore, Lelouch succumbed to at least eighty internalised heat strokes daily. 

And Lelouch is pretty damn sure that there’s no way their geographical borders of the world line up, but surely the basics are the same. “Greenland.” Jirou stares, someone appearing more judgmental than her deadbeat gaze already suggests. 

She takes a long slurp from her smoothie. “...Are you sure about that.” And it’s not a question of redemption: it’s a statement of condemnation. And he internally regrets his lack of studying that he lazed into after being banished, because _somehow_ , dedicating to learning anything about the Britannian Empire sounded like bullshit to twelve-year-old Lelouch. And of course, sixth-grade Lelouch’s rebellious streak is now biting him in the ass in _not_ a parallel dimension, but in a completely other, out-of-galaxy skew lines universe where apparently the god-forsaken U.S. still exists but not fucking Greenland. “I’m. See, I don’t know much-” Kaminari begins slowly.

“Amen,” Jirou mouths around her straw.

“But, I do not think Greenland is a part of the U.S. Like. Not as an opinion.” So. Greenland _does_ still exist. But. _Greenland was taken over by the Europia United_ and Lelouch is frankly _not_ okay. He needs a map. Or at least the basic idea of how the world turned out after the previous wars. But Lelouch _can’t_ just ask who won War World II. Or who has Australia right now. That’s _literally_ not even within the realm of salvation for his image as well as the others’ concern for his understanding of basic history 101. “Wait, random question,” and _god_ he looks like a lunatic more than already. “But what are the world’s superpowers?”

“Uh. I don’t know. Probably something freaky and we don’t even know exists. Like. Someone’ quirk messes with our realm of nature and physics. Like time. Or like. Travelling different dimensions,” Kaminari shrugs, stating with the powerful irony existing through a fourth wall that remains unbeknownst to the characters within their inorganic universes puppeteered by an unwisely deprived author.

“No, like. Like world superpowers. Like country-wise,” Lelouch exclaims, attempting to reign in his impatience. Being brash won’t get him anywhere with these people.

“I don’t even know,” Kaminari shrugs. “China? Russian probably? United States? England?” _And they’re not united? They’re individual?_ The British Empire still seems to exist independently? “I- wait what is happening, I’m? See, sorry, I’m just slightly confused. I came out here with them to buy snacks for our study session with the rest of my friends, and we find a semi-amnesic-”

“I’m not amnesic.”

“That’s why I placed ‘semi’ before that,” Kaminari elaborates to Lelouch as if _he’s_ the one with questionable comprehension skills.

“Not amnesic.” Jirou murmurs. “Dumb?” She suggests, and _Lelouch has_ never _been disgraced in such a manner before._ Sure, slacker, waste of potential, disappointment, many things have been rightfully identified as simply part of his nature.

Dumb is a new low, and a false one at that. The others are _fair_ because _hey_ , he _is_ a deadbeat. But not a _dumb_ deadbeat. 

“Nah. Not dumb. Just. I don’t know. You literally act like you never lived a single day on this earth.”

Wait until he hears he hasn’t even lived up to an hour on here.

“Oh, so basically an alien!” Kaminari beams.

Lelouch does not like thinking that he’s been defined as the same kind as C.C.

“An immortal. Someone not of our realm,” Tokoyami redefines, and Lelouch doesn’t give away exactly how accurate that correction was. 

“Not an alien or. Or whatever you said, Tokoyami.” Lelouch retorts. “I came from-” and he scours through every single memory he’s had, seeking for _something_ that’d make sense. Then- through the depths of his hazy memories, one including Rivalz, despite his consistent attempts on blocking him out of his mind at all costs, a single, cursed sentence ricochets against the walls of his cortex. 

_“Yeehaw, Lelouch!”_

“...Texas.”

Jirou and Kaminari stare at him, while Tokoyami looks like his shadow swallowed up his eyeballs like grapes.

Then, Jirou snorts, smoothie spraying out her flubbering mouth.

“It all makes sense, now,” Tokoyami muses gravely. 

“It really does. No wonder he’s the way he is,” Jirou chokes out, smoothie dribbling out of her gaping mouth. And Lelouch doesn’t know if he’s being mocked or pitied. 

“Are you serious?” Kaminari begins, any hint wariness in his eyes melting, something so drug-fueled in his gaze that Lelouch winces, thinking he actually had a Geass located in his eyes as well. “Oh my God. Say ‘yeehaw’.” And that's what Rivalz said too, right? Maybe that’s just Texas language? English? Lelouch specialises in French and Latin, because he’s pretentious, but he does know English- fluently at that.. 

However, he never learned the word ‘yeehaw’. It’s probably improper language.

“Yee...haw.” 

Something empties in Lelouch’s heart, never to be recovered again. 

“He’s _totally_ a true Texan!” Kaminari squawks. “I mean, c’mon. Strange guy, heatstroke in a random alleyway, zero trajectory of thoughts, he gotta be from the wild west!” 

Mildly, as Kaminari’s shouts static into white noise, overwhelmed by Lelouch’s main focus on his internalised thoughts, Lelouch realises that he deserved death at the moment of the battlefield. Right now, this really was purgatory as he initially assumed, and this is his eternity of consequences for cowardly refusing death. “Where’s your accent? Can you speak with a southern accent?”

“ _What’s a southern accent?”_ Lelouch inquires with perfect English, having zero fight left in him to defeat his fate of internalised regrets, allowing himself to submit to the torturous, Animal Crossing dialogue with Kaminari. Whether or not Lelouch is aware of what Animal Crossing is, or the reality of the world he is in, is of no concern to him anymore.

Existence is a mere concept in his mind if this is the realm he must make do in. 

“I have no idea what he said but that was _totally_ English! Didn’t have the ‘twang’ I hear in movies, but definitely English!” Kaminari whoops. “We have to show him to the others! Kirishima would flip!”

“I think we should take him to the police. He’s clearly lost.” Tokoyami shakes his head. “Or, Lelouch, where are you staying? We can probably take you there if it’s nearby. If not, we can take you to the local police- they can help you find a place.”

And Lelouch knows he can easily find a place to stay- just seek out a gambling house whose wins depend on strategy, and garner enough money to find a place to stay. From there, he can easily integrate himself into the underground world, especially since he doesn’t truly ‘exist’ in this world. 

But Lelouch can’t do that.

He needs to go _home_.

And the idea of everything that he built: the foundation of an empire, the questioning of the people and the conspiracies and the politics and the discussions and the murders and his _family_ and the bloodline roaches and the answers and his mother and _Nunnally-_

The ultimatum is that Zero cannot just stop existing.

Lelouch also has dark desires, selfisher than the ones he already hold close to him and sacrificed innocents for: he does not think he could survive another day with another variation of Rivalz, and Kaminari is proving himself to be an admirable substitute. Especially since Kaminari has intuition that Lelouch does not think he could sleep peacefully, knowing that it’s directed at him. 

“He’s staring into the distance for too long. He totally has nowhere to stay. Truly, a dumbass,” Jirou begins, and the exemplarily shock of being called ‘dumb’ twice in less than ten minutes and for the second time in his life, practically bitch-beats him back to reality. “Let’s just take him with us as a guest visitor.”

* * *

And the third law of reality Lelouch learns of this natural world where quirks exist and people aren’t just people-

Is that no matter where he goes, children will still be children.

“You disappear for half an hour, your treats are all eaten and the ice cream’s melted, and you brought back a fucking _human being_?” Screams a kid who looks like he needs to eat shit. “How the fuck do you even do that?”

“Why’s he wearing tights?” And Lelouch hates everyone. “Damn, if my legs look just like yours when I’m wearing ceramic-wrap-looking-tights that two-thousand-and-ten Kesha in the middle of a music video would flaunt, then I swear I have all the self-confident energy I need for the rest of my godforsaken life,” finishes the girl with pink skin (and Lelouch is desperately trying not to stare). 

He takes a second to at least try and decipher the bullshit she spouted.

He decides he hates everyone except for (1) person. 


	2. everyone is ooc and i can't stop thinking about it i'm sorry guys.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i sincerely given up on being in character by this point and it's literally only the second chapter.  
> \- uh instant cement  
> \- movie night  
> \- todoroki: feels the binding wavelengths between him and lelouch's overlapping brain cell  
> \- lelocuh: existential crisis but like. twice. or three times idk i lost count  
> \- i didn't even bother editing this chapter bc i was like "fuck this"  
> \- LMAO me: let's fuck this shit up even more by messing with the meta reality of code geass as an anime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha the last time i updated was nine months ago.
> 
> god lelouch is such an asshole.

Aizawa looks up, skimming the blurry faces of his boisterous homeroom, and glances back down at the attendance sheet.

He may have had them for almost a year, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t remember more than .3 of his students.

 _Kyoka Jirou, Eijiro Kirishima, Toru Hagakure_ , he pauses, unsure if he saw a full body of floating clothes running amok. Whatever. He’ll just put her down as ‘here’- he could always argue that she was technically here, just streaking. _Hanata Sero, Mezo Shoji,_ he squints, attempting to decipher the name blotched blurry from an old coffee stain, _...Katsuk Ba…_ he squints ... _salmic?_

After less than a fraction of a second trying to recall his students that he purposefully represses out of his memory each day before he goes to sleep, he decides that it’s not worth it. He checks all his students as ‘here’ without a second thought.

He looks up, “okay guys, class is starting. Shut up.”

* * *

Lelouch stares.

“See, told you.” Kaminari snickers.

Lelouch, ignoring the downgraded, frosted-tipped Rivalz, begins questioning this school’s staff.

“He really just didn’t notice me?” Lelouch mumbles, disturbed. Then again, there’s a kid with _six arms_ that Lelouch has yet to be introduced to (and honestly, he doesn’t know if he wants to. His arm looks thicker than Lelouch’s figure), just lounging at the back, stacking his erasers. 

He supposes the fact that the teacher didn’t notice him isn’t that strange- after all, he doesn’t really stick out given the population of people here.

“It’s not that he didn’t really _notice_ you, I think he just genuinely doesn’t know who’s in this class,” informs Kirishima, an earnest student around Lelouch’s age, who appears to be a genuinely nice person. Though, Lelouch does question the depth of the man’s fundamental traits, since earlier, Lelouch accidentally made direct eye-contact with him earlier and saw absolutely _nothing_ behind his eyes- _nothing._ Either he’s brain-dead to explain the cobwebs behind his gaze, or he’s simply just dead inside. 

“Oh. Is this the beginning of the school year?” Lelouch inquires. It would explain why the teacher doesn’t know all his students yet. It doesn’t feel like summer, though. But then again, maybe the seasons are different here.

Kirishima nonchalantly shakes his head. “No it’s almost the end of the year.”

Lelouch stares.

“Class, shut up,” the teacher from the front barks. Lelouch hunches over, but the man’s eyes just swivel over him glassily. Then again, his entire demeanor screams alcoholic, so maybe he’s just seriously not cognitively here anymore.

Lelouch watches as the terribly disruptive kid who he has learned is as outwardly destructive as he clearly is inwardly (he’s truly convinced that no one with a personality like that understands the concept of Peace) try to brain Midoriya with the sharp end of his pencil.

And suddenly, he supposes the questionably under-qualified teacher makes sense. This is clearly some school for troubled kids. If the teacher needs to be hardcore smashed to the point of being unable to recognise his own class by the end of the year, then so be it. 

He hears a moan, and locating the source of the noise, finds Sero, a boy he was unfortunately introduced to less than an hour ago when he woke up (not dead, and with ice cream crusted on his cheek), lean back in his seat, eyes closed.

“Is he sleeping?” Lelouch questions. He did that all the time. But Lelouch did it because he could actually spare time in class with little consequences, as he could easily DIY his tests just from what he already knows. Meanwhile, Lelouch can barely believe everyone’s IQ here could combine into double digits. Therefore, he doesn’t know if he’s impressed by the boldness (or really, the nerve) of Sero’s act of sleeping throughout class. 

Mina, the only person who has yet to insult Lelouch, shakes her head. “No. Sero’s special, you see,” she presents, grasping his limp shoulder. “He can play the entire _Home Alone_ series behind his eyelids with vivid memory.”

Lelouch, unsure how to respond to that yet unwilling to rudely disconnect his existence from this hell, can only look directly into her vortexing eyes as if they’d provide an explanation through their abyssal nothingness. 

“What’s _Home Alone?”_ Lelouch finally musters energy to question the unfathomable.

Mina gasps. _“You don’t know_ Home Alone?”

Her embarrassingly loud proclamation draws others’ attention, as well.

“Uncultured,” Jirou clicks her tongue from the front _._ And Lelouch just wants to know why that one girl has been underestimating his intelligence from the beginning, when he _knows_ he could wipe her at a trivia of her own world if he was given half an hour to pull up Britipedia.

“It’s like this, American movie franchise,” Mina theatrically clears her throat. “Like. Holiday spirits, but violent. So basically if _Die_ _Hard_ had a Kidz Bop version of itself.”

And he thought she was going to continue and get to the actual elaboration, but with her expectant expression and uncharacteristic quietness, it takes him a moment to realize her unexplainable rambling _was_ the explanation.

“What.” 

Jirou looks at him, clearly confused when he’s pretty sure she has no right to be, “why do you sound confused about American lore?”

“You’re from _Texas_ how do you _not_ know what I’m talking about? Everything I just said those were _literally_ the fundamental regions of America’s political compass-”

Lelouch can’t believe he’s in an actual environment that’s unintentionally testing his intelligence and adaptability just through its default nature, given everything he’s already been through.

“He’s from Texas, right?” Tokoyami says patiently from where he’s drawing open eyes onto a piece of tissue paper before laying it over Sero’s closed ones. “Maybe they don’t have holidays. It probably doesn’t snow there.”

They all fall quiet. 

And in no way does anything that he just said sounds right, but Lelouch also doesn’t know enough about Texas to dispute it.

“But you don’t have have _some_ holidays in the winter season?” Jirou grunts, her jaw snapping even harder around her gum. Well, they actually do. But he honestly has no will to talk with this girl. 

“You guys don’t have _Home Alone?_ ” Mina gripes loudly. “Not even the poorly Japanese dubbed ones with Russian and Malay?”

“Mina. That’s just you and your laptop virus.” Tokoyami deadpans.

“BUT YOU DON’T HAVE _HOME ALONE?”_ Mina shouts over Tokoyami. 

“Mina!” A sudden and sharp exclamation from the front jolts Mina in her seat and Lelouch reflexively glares over at the source of the noise.

_Ah_.

The teacher’s glowering from the front, and Lelouch watches as his gaze sweeps across all of them, before fixating on him, and squinting slightly.

“Why is there another stray in our class.” The teacher rasps, and he doesn’t even sound like he wants an answer. It was spoken not with a questioning tone, but a threatening one.

For a moment, Lelouch's honed self-preservation instincts ring alarms in his mind: _he's dangerous._

Then, he takes another look at the unkempt man who looks like his entire g-tract is being pulverized by a good spoonful of depression and unproductivity. _No way._ But, best to not underestimate him. 

“He was always in our class.” Mina replies with the confidence of a man who Fears No god.

The teacher stares at her.

Mina stares back.

Then, quickly and effectively shattering the tense silence, the blonde from the front growls from where he’s trying to curbstomp Midoriya’s neck like car brakes; “he doesn’t even _go_ here!”

“I don’t.” Lelouch admits. He knows when to cut his losses. Besides, when the teacher kicks him out, it’ll only be a win for him and his very fragile sanity that’s barely clinging on at the moment-

“Yeah. Okay.” The teacher says. Then, he turns back to the blackboard, scrawling the rest of his equation onto it.

Lelouch waits for him to call down to the office or send him down.

“You. New student.”

“I’m not a new student.”

“Solve this equation.”

“I’m not a student.” He echoes. 

The teacher wrinkles his nose at that. “Your point?”

Lelouch, reeling from the whiplash of the turns of this conversation, can only conclude that the disharmony of his conversations with literally _everyone_ since he got here must be due to some cultural barrier between them. He genuinely cannot think of another excuse for his constant and uncharacteristic sense of disarray and mild cryptic insanity within the atmosphere. Because Lelouch, he’s _smart_ . This isn’t an opinion, it’s a fact that he’s academically intelligent and he _knows_ he’s adaptable and quick because given everything he’s done in his life, he _has to be_ so _why_ can he seemingly _not_ instantaneously accommodate to the off-beat and unrhythmic tempo of everyone else-

“Lelouch, solve the equation!” Mina hisses loudly, rudely splicing up the rest of Lelouch’s disjointed string of thoughts over his sudden and impeding identity crisis. “Or else he’ll pick one of us!”

“I’m not a student,” he repeats mechanically, as if that’ll save him now. “I’m not solving that,” he reiterates more firmly, regaining a bit of his faltering cognitive functioning. It’s like he’s losing it.

And here’s the thing, Lelouch does _not_ lose it. He did _not_ lose it when he fought with a childhood friend in front of a technological egg that cracked and released an _ancient alien from eons ago_ or something; he did not lose it when he fought face to face with his own family, when he selfishly made a decision to sacrifice citizens when that decision was not meant for him; he did _not_ lose it when he realised the only guarantee for success of such a divided and corrupt nation was through a common enemy, and that nobody would ever sacrifice themselves up for it so what else could he do but do it himself; he did not lose it wh-

“C’mon. I picked you because I knew the rest of the class can’t do this.” The teacher’s unimpressed and substantially cranky voice snaps from the front. 

“Fuck you,” spits the blonde from the front, and the teacher doesn’t even _tell him off_. Not like Lelouch is really surprised by anything anymore.

This social climate has to be because the culture is different.

He looks at the blonde once more. Or it could just be a him problem. 

“I’m literally not a student here. I don't attend the school."

“You don’t need to be a student to have common sense.” The teacher rebuttals, and if Lelouch has to analyze the undertone of his voice, he’d almost say the teacher’s attempting to _reassure_ him. Wow.

“I don’t want to be here.” And Lelouch does _not_ plead, however, he can still hear the thin layer of desperation in his tone that causes him to inwardly cringe in displeasure and anger.

The teacher looks at him flatly. “And? You think any of us wants to be here? Make it make sense.”

Lelouch rarely ever is at a loss for words- he’d like to say when he arrived here, disorientated and most definitely unprepared to the people he’d meet here, he still accepted his situation rather quickly.

Yet he finds himself, for possibly the third time in just this minute, unable to conjure an appropriate response. Or even an inappropriate one. How does he even respond to that? What the heck? Lelouch doesn't know if he's positively disturbed (he's _not_ distraught-) or nonchalantly infuriated by the existence of these people, especially of the _adult_ who's babysitting the entire class.

Babysitting. Actually. That. Well, if Lelouch can sympathize with him: a disgruntled leader over a group of questionable and indistinguishable fools. Fools who are good people. His anger melts.

“Oh. Sorry?” He finally replies, almost out of placid pity.

The teacher, though his authority is already irritating Lelouch’s sense of pride, is clearly a tragic figure and victim of this class as well.

“Apologies and prayers aren't validated currency here. We’re all suffering here.” For the _fourth_ time, Lelouch doesn’t know what to say. “Get up here.”

* * *

“You’re pretty cool, aren’tcha?” Mina hums. “For answering the Qs. You see, Yaoyorozu and Iida-” and he knows them. His memory is pretty good, so recalling and matching faces to names isn’t troublesome for him. “Those two, they avoid answering the questions during class because they want _us_ to,” she begins making quotation marks with her fingers, “ _learn_ ,” she utters as if that word is utterly foreign to her.

Lelouch has a feeling it really is, just going by her existence.

“And Bakugou, he’s _super_ smart, but he never participates. Just not his vibe.”

Lelouch crinkles his mouth, “Bakugou? The blonde?” He clarifies.

“Mhm! He’s actually _really_ smart!”

“Why,” Lelouch blurts without forethought. 

However, Mina doesn’t call him out on how incompatible his answer is as a response, and instead, nods sympathetically, as if understanding his internalized conflict. 

It looks like even his friends have no idea how he turned out this way.

“Anyways, it’s lunch, come eat lunch with us!”

“No.”

* * *

Aizawa thinks back to the kid. He turns to Yamada in the teacher's lounge. “We have a new student.”

“We do?” Kayama blinks. “This late into the year? I didn’t get an email about this.”

“Yeah I didn’t get the email either, but I still got the student,” if he has to suffer, so does the rest of them. He conjures a blurry image of his class, knowing for a fact that it’d be futile to try and be specific with his students. The only time he has a traumatizingly vivid recollection of any of his student’s faces is when he wakes up in cold sweat at night when Bakugou decides to visit him in his nightmares. “He’s not an official student. He just exists.” He reiterates.

“Oh. So like Shinsou whenever he shows up in this department without warning.” Yamada snaps his fingers.

“Wait. That’s not. That's not legal,” Ectoplasm’s voice clips through his sentence.

Aizawa shrugs, walking over to Howard the ancient coffee maker who wheezes more caffeine than he brews, wrestling his deformed pitcher out from his body. 

“You can’t just do that,” Ectoplasm gripes.

“Is he hot?” Kayama inquires boredly from where she had rolled up her jumpsuit up to underneath her knee, and is currently trying to wax off a strip of hair using clear duct tape and the tackiest and most annoying glue that never gets out from anything (as proven by Eri and her lab partner, Aizawa’s carpet): Elmer’s glitter glue.

“He’s a minor.” Ectoplasm warns dryly. 

Aizawa considers the boy.

“I’ve already forgotten what he looked like,” he confesses dryly, ignoring Kayama’s groan. “But,” he begins, slamming the coffee pot into its holder. “I just know that I already like him more than every other student.”

“ _You_ actually have favourites?” Yamada inquires in disbelief.

“ _You_ actually like your students?” Kayama asks with parallel shock. 

“ _He’s actually_ willing to come up to the board and answer questions.” He throws back their phrase with an equally irritating voice. He pauses, “or maybe it’s because he’s in equal shock of what situation he’s wrapped up in and doesn’t have the energy to fight back. Both work.” He claims, musing over his recollections of him, “oh, I kind of remember him now just based off of that. He looked malnourished. Like. Western Victoria era skinny, with a liver contaminated with the black plague.”

“Oh so he’d be popular on TikTok,” Kayama murmurs, before hissing as she rips the tape off her pale leg.

“Wait. We should probably tell Nezu about this intruder,” Ectoplasm clears his throat in intervention.

Aizawa brings out a mug from the cabinet, leaving it beside Howard, taking the whole crusty pitcher with him and upheaving its entire content of lukewarm coffee into his mouth. 

“That’s like. A lot of work,” Yamada begins doubtfully.

“Guys.” Ectoplasm begins, his typically calm demeanor cracked by his exasperated tone (a tone not spawned by panic, but out of clear fatigue and willingness to end it all). “We can’t just have a random kid running around and joining our classes, I am _not_ letting you guys do another irresponsible and illegal thing. When I see him, I’m removing him off of school grounds-”

* * *

Ectoplasm watches as this student, Lelouch, who truly _does_ look like a starved kid from Ancient Japan due to his unblinking, glassy eyes cracked with obvious stress and fatigue, finish Ectoplasm’s fifth math equation scratched onto the board.

* * *

“Yeah, let’s keep him.” Ectoplasm announces as he walks into the teacher’s lounge where Kayama is gone probably to teach her class, and Aizawa is currently stoney faced at his laptop that’s on fire on their counter.

“Who?” Kan blinks, looking up from his phone.

“The new kid.”

“Oh. You guys have a new kid? Aizawa, is he yours?” Kan inquires curiously as Aizawa slowly places his hands up to the temples of his head.

“All my _work_ ,” Aizawa wheezes.

Ectoplasm frowns. “Aizawa, the counter is most likely covered in some protective seal, don’t place open fire on it, or else it’ll damage it.”

“He’s not his student. He’s just a student.” Yamada corrects.

“He’s not even a student.” Kayama specifies.

Kan stares. “Right.” He says.

“I’m going to end it all.” Aizawa announces flatly, staring at his black screen.

“Kan, I think you’d like him,” Yamada adds. “He’s quiet.” He screws his lips into a considerate pout, “or just dead inside.”

Ectoplasm thinks back to Lelouch, who gripped the chalk so tightly it crumpled over his fingers like he screwed up a line of coke. “It’s definitely the latter,” Ectoplasm nods sagely.

* * *

“You’re _really_ into this,” Kayama-sensei murmurs appreciatively.

Lelouch instinctively bristles by her approach. 

She seemed normal at first: no-nonsense and temperamental over authority (yet all the students don’t appear particularly bothered by her sudden strictness, if anything, they seem to find it amusingly terrifying).

Then he realised she was Milly, if Milly doesn’t end up with a sexual harassment report that prevents her from getting an educator degree.

And Lelouch is not easily deterred or outwardly bothered by events, and especially not by others- he would never give others that satisfaction. However, as all human nature does, he has an ingrained response towards primal fear, a response classically conditioned into association towards certain stimuli that foreshadows certain danger. Milly would be one. 

And so would anyone who’s _like_ Milly.

Which is why he jerked away when Kayama-sensei took a step closer.

To the side, Sero snorts loudly, and even Bakugou, a boy whose source of entertainment diverges from mainstream comedy and instead spawns from death and pain, slaps the table in obvious amusement.

“Oi, why are you acting like this?” Kayama-sensei's voice steels into a cold tone, and Lelouch stiffens, attempting to compose his attitude without appearing too apologetic. As if sensing his indignation, she scoffs mockingly. “Anyways, glad to see your research is going well,” she nods towards the textbook he flipped open. Everyone else is using their own devices for research, while Lelouch just borrowed one of the classroom’s textbooks. “Though,” she frowns slightly, “we’re focusing on just Ancient Greek right now. Why are you going into Japan and everywhere else?”

_Just wanted to see if the history will give me clues as to how your world diverged from mine_. “I finished reading that section,” he admits honestly.

She props an eyebrow in clear doubt, though, she doesn’t say anything. Probably because he’s not _actually_ a student who requires a passing grade for this class.

“Nice to see someone is interested in this subject.”

“It’s very interesting.” He says approvingly. “Do you have more books about more current art? The history is great, too, I just want to see how it stretches into _very_ modern day, such as works of our generation.”

At this, she inclines her head, and to his surprise, a vicious and cutting smile slices across her pale face.

He doesn’t know what to make of this school. The students do have a dress-code, he supposes, but the teachers clearly do not. The first teacher whose teeth are stained with caffeine and long-term depression was dressed like he was mugged, the second one _didn’t even appear human_ (or maybe he was one of those people who believe in aliens. So. Like _him_ he guesses), and this teacher looks like she has a night job. 

Respect, he guesses.

“Really? You’re really into this? Of course, then!” Her attitude was utterly abandoned to the side, as she adopts a saccharine and more violently confrontational tone, _and oh, it really_ is _Milly_.

And she leaves, excitedly rushing over to their classroom’s shelf. He blinks, and shifts in his seat to glance back at the front. 

“Holy shit, you’re a simp?” Bakugou barks.

Lelouch blinks, gaze sidling over to the desk a couple rows down, narrowing his eyes at his tone. Now, is this just Bakugou being Bakugou, or is this Bakugou purposefully sounding condescending?

“Geez, you can’t just ask that.” Kaminari scowls.

“You’re a simp, too,” Jirou says flatly, and she’s not even researching, she’s currently folding an origami bird of some sort.

Lelouch stares at it, long enough for himself to feel weird about it, and he tears his gaze away.

“What’s a simp?” Lelouch finally asks, miffed that he’s asking something from them in the first place.

Bakugou’s head jerks up so fast, that Lelouch’s left with fleeting and unwarranted disappointment that his neck didn’t just snap off.

“You’re literally from America, how do you not know English?” Jirou glances up, miscreasing the wing of the bird.

Lelouch feels his thumb twitch, restraining himself from fixing it.

“I was born there. Haven’t been there in three years,” he determines. _Whatever_. After he said he was from Texas, everyone seemed to easily accept everything else he claimed about his origins. It'd be detrimental and most certainly foolish if he doesn't take advantage of such an easy offering. 

“Where were you for those three years?” Kaminari gapes.

“I mean. You don’t have to be in America to not have Twitter,” Sero states, and _there’s that word again_ . He has _no_ idea what Twitter is. “Then again, you miss a single day on that app, and you miss an entire lore of one of our generation’s cultural resets.” He shakes his head in understanding, even though _no_ , because Lelouch does _not_ understand _what_ he’s supposed to be understanding about.

“You’re weird.” Bakugou says.

And those two words that Lelouch can each individually understand, were just combined to create an unfathomable sentence whose incomprehensibility lies solely in the fact that it came out of someone like Bakugou- Bakugou- 

“What’s your first name?” Lelouch suddenly inquires, and Bakugou viscerally flinches so hard he nearly falls off his chair.

“Katsuki.” Jirou answers tonelessly from beside him.

_“Don’t fucking give out my name without even asking or else I’ll yank your earlobes like I’m milking them-”_

_And those two words that Lelouch can each individually understand, were just combined to create an unfathomable sentence whose incomprehensibility lies solely in the fact that it came out of someone like Bakugou_ Katsuki’s _mouth, somehow broke down his cognitive functioning centers to the point where he has to reboot them._

After four minutes of revitalizing his rather unwilling neural processing centers to fully digest Bakugou’s sentence, Lelouch can only decide that he’s mildly insulted.

* * *

“I like him.”

Aizawa raises a brow. “Really?” He can’t tell much about the boy- he’s only had one class with him, but from what he could tell, he was prideful. Is it to the point of Bakugou’s rebounding superiority complex that by this point into the year, mildly flares up every once in a while before tempering back down? He doesn’t know.

But the boy clearly had an issue with being ordered around.

Kayama isn’t compatible with arrogance, despite how she easily grows fond of the most problematic students.

“Yeah. He actually looked interested in the shit.” She scoffs. “I mean. Is he Aoyama who currently makes replica sculptures of important Greek figures with terrifying detail that I’m starting to suspect he’s selling them as antiques off of Etsy? No. But is he doing the actual minimum of this class instead of playing slither.io on his laptop?” She finger guns. “Yes.”

“Who _is_ this student?” Kan sighs, exasperated, coming back from a class with his homeroom, which really translates into forty-five minutes of babysitting duty.

“The only student who actually acts like a student despite not being a student.” Kayama answers simply.

* * *

Lelouch doesn’t have a course in mind.

He’s an extravagant planner with a lot of amplified drama, probably because he has a good handful of annoyance and boredom fueling his theatrics. 

But despite being given _so much_ to work with (for example, a whole _alternate reality_ ), he can’t work with anything that he _wants._

He’s offered nothing that would give him an idea of how to return back to _his_ own reality.

And he would leave, find out more about this world, perhaps see if they have certain quirks pertaining to altering of the fabric of space and time, but the thing is, he doesn’t know where he could go. He doesn’t have money, doesn’t know where to find back alley streets or underground currency, doesn’t really have anywhere to _go_. 

Which is why he’ll selfishly take everything that’s offered to him.

He stares at the bowl placed in front of him.

 _Greed is certainly something I must be wary of_ , he determines. “What is this?” He gestures lightly to the food.

“See, our school only provides for lunch and dinner, so whenever we want an evening snack, we just whip something up,” Kaminari begins. 

“Wait. This is meant to be _food_ -”

“And well, Kacchan said he wasn’t going to make us anything,” Kaminari’s bones creak as he takes a stretch, collapsing onto the chair beside him. “So, this is something me and Mina made! It’ll be fine, we were both able to digest it just fine.”

 _And the bar is so low, it’s in hell._ Lelouch warily picks up the spoon, and it feels like he’s stirring through half-hardened instant cement. “Right. So you, whose body doesn’t follow the basic laws of natural selection, and Mina, the one whose body fluids include acid, were able to break this down.” He summarizes.

Kaminari nods proudly.

Yeah, Lelouch is hungry. He’s always had a metabolism that burned through everything, and quite frankly, given the fact that he was _somewhat_ stressed (being the leader of a terrorist group with a personal agenda that leaves you isolated and alone with all the meticulous planning tends to do that to you-), he really didn’t spend any time thinking about eating.

He glances at the bowl again. “What's this supposed to be?”

“Well. At first we were trying to make homemade glue to make a paper-mache statue for Kayama-sensei's class, but then we got hungry midway.” He explains.

Lelouch stares.

“It’s edible,” he adds, as if that’s the major issue here. And if that in itself isn’t the most prominent problem of this entire scenario, then that really just speaks volumes. _The bar is in hell,_ Lelouch thinks once again. 

“It’s edible because you have low standards.” The small boy whose entire appearance just reminds Lelouch of grapes, retorts from where he’s rummaging through the fridge.

“No, it doesn't suck, I like it,” Kirishima remarks, sounding genuinely offended from where he’s trying to use an apple slice as an eraser on the homework sheet that Lelouch is _pretty_ sure he was working on for the past two hours.

“No. It sucks.” Bakugou growls, not even glancing up from his phone that he’s tapping furiously away on.

And Lelouch can only deduce from those twos’ current dynamic and the fact that Bakugou surprisingly hasn’t left from where he’s seated across Kirishima, that Bakugou is _supervising_ Kirishima’s work. He supposes that Mina really wasn’t lying when she said Bakugou was smart. Though, that doesn’t mean much to Lelouch, who has confidence in his own intelligence to disregard others’ intelligence. 

“I. I’m honestly not that hungry,” Lelouch admits.

Kaminari blinks. “Dude. You’re literally a stick. Like. You’re like those old, two-thousand generation anime characters.”

Lelouch has no idea what an anime is, but figuring by this point that this entire society and its cultural background can be skimmed without much consequence, doesn’t bother to ask. Knowing manners or pop culture isn’t going to help him get back home, after all. 

“Wasn’t that art style popularized by like. That group? Of artists? All females? ‘CLAMP’, wasn’t it?” Mina wrinkles her nose. “Nah. No way. It was popular before them, now that I remember. Right?”

“CLAMP? Didn’t they work on really famous projects and shit?” Bakugou grunts, still not looking up from his phone.

Lelouch uses his bent spoon to fold the grey concoction in his bowl so that it doesn't coagulate and harden to the point of no return.

“Yeah. They like helped design a lot of popular anime." Kirishima screws his face slightly, "didn't they also do a bunch of doujinshis, as well?" He questions curiously. "Oh crap!” Kirishima snaps his fingers. “I think they made- oh wait, never mind. Was it Sunrise? That animation studio? That made _Code Geass_ -” Lelouch’s lackluster stirring falters. 

“Collaborated. They both worked on it. I used to watch that show as a kid. Never finished it,” states the short, purple kid. Then he thoughtfully adds: “but I liked it even though I didn’t understand the plot. Probably because the girls were super hot. Great assets," he adds, oblivious to the way Kirishima crinkles his nose distastefully and Bakugou scoffs scornfully. 

However, Lelouch wasn't thrown off because of that. “Wait, what’s ‘code geass’?” Lelouch suddenly asks, throat hot. _No_.

Coincidence. Has to be a coincidence. 

This is a whole other reality, ‘geass’ could probably exist on its own as well, or is simply a word with another meaning; it doesn’t have to _actually_ have anything to do with him. It could just be a genre of quirks, or powers or whatever they-

“Oh? Shit? _What?_ You don’t know _Code Geass?”_ Kaminari gasps, lunging over the table and grasping Lelouch’s hands, and Lelouch quickly recoils. _“Bro! Shit we should watch it!”_

“What. What is it?” Sounds like a form of media. His faltering heartbeat stills slightly, the sharp knocking against his ribcage and back of his skull dulls into a _thump_ , as his panic subsides. 

“It’s like. About this made-up alternate world of Japan that kinda just got colonized? Right?” Kaminari starts off strong, though, he falters, glancing at the others. Lelouch looks up sharply, his flatlining anxiety suddenly picking up again. _Media. Just a form of media._

“Dunno. Don’t watch anime. Why do that when you can watch superheroes?” Bakugou scoffs scornfully.

“I just knew there was a green-haired alien,” Mina smirks, sticking out her tongue. “C.C., right? She was _so_ hot. And was definitely a sponsor mascot. I mean. C’mon. Pizza Hut.” She snorts. 

_Pizza Hut._

Lelouch loses all fight, no longer trying to escape Kaminari’s death grip and unfalteringly foolish incompetence.

No way.

C.C. 

_Well._ He doesn’t let it get ahead of him. Because C.C. _is_ some alternate life form, _probably_ not of this dimension. So if she exists in other realities in various life forms, then he shouldn't be that shocked. But what about everything _else_ that they’re saying? He could maybe dismiss ‘geass’ with the same conclusion he pulled for C.C., that it’s already some alternate dimensional factor that could’ve touched upon another world than just his own. 

“The anime. It’s about this guy, he.” Kaminari pauses, before his eyes light up. “Oh SHIT! His name was Lulu, I think his full name was Lelouch, too!" He exclaims brightly, turning to Lelouch, gripping his wrists tightly, eyes flickering like neon stars. "And he has purple eyes and black hair _just like you_ -”

Lelouch jerks his hands back _hard_ , and nearly tips over his seat at that. _“I._ ” Kaminari appears ignorant of the panic of his reactions, as he’s now just pretending like his sleeves aren’t brushing against the DIY concrete mix he made. _Show._ They said _show._

Are they saying Lelouch is a _character from a show?_

And with the faintness in his head, the numbness of his thoughts, it feels like his blood thinned out by dilution with ice water. 

“Wait. Are you saying that _Code Geass_ is a _show?”_ Lelouch clarifies.

“Hell yeah! An anime!"

"Anime." He echoes, dizzy. He doesn't even _know_ what an anime is. "It was pretty good I think.” Kaminari hums. “There was this one character I was really into. Kind of reminded him of me-”

“Rivalz.” Lelouch blurts with an uncharacteristic lack of forethought.

Kaminari’s glittering expression contrasts the sudden crumple of Lelouch’s, because _no_.

_Deny it. Deny i-_ “HIM! Yeah, _that’s the one!”_

Something lurches in the swamps of his intestines, disgusted. "Rivalz? Yeah. I remember him from the intro." Bakugou mutters. "But there's no way he's like you, has to be vice-versa." He snorts, looking at Kaminari. "Walmart-sales-rack-aisle Rivalz." And _Rivalz!_ Rivalz is nothing more than just a vague description to all of them, while the word walmart means something more to them (and that word only serves to remind Lelouch that he isn't real in this world. That walmart, a word Lelouch has never heard of before, exists and means something to everyone here, yet, the only thing Lelouch could understand in that entire sentence which was his friend's name, _doesn't_ -).

And Lelouch laughs, something hysterical and _disgusted_ and spiteful curdling the saliva clogging up his airways, something bitter like bile pooling into his mouth. 

But before he can puke out water and all his feelings, he quickly stands up, slamming his hands onto the table. “Bathroom,” he chokes out through a carbonated and rusty laugh, his melting bones malleable underneath the pressure of an irreversible existential crisis.

* * *

They watch as Lelouch runs off.

“Huh.” Kaminari blinks, startled by Lelouch’s sudden bark of laughter and uncharacteristically loud actions. “Is he okay?”

“I mean. Who is?” Jirou mutters, scratching her thigh. She had swapped out her school uniform after classes (as always), and is now sporting Hello Kitty shorts and an old band shirt. “Kaminari, stop scaring him.” She adds with a derisive glare of her eyes.

“Hey!” He gripes, crumpling onto the table, bored now that Lelouch is gone. “I just said he looked like that one character! Like, if Lelouch was an anime character, I _swear,_ he’d look _exactly_ like him!”

“Does he act like him?” Jirou scoffs, clearly unimpressed by Kaminari’s _very VERY_ cool facts.

Kaminari blinks, glancing up. “Uh. Kind of?” He knots his lips into a thoughtful frown. “I mean. They both like. Act like, I mean. You _know,_ ” and Lelouch’s obvious condescending nature isn’t really, well, _hidden_. Jirou nods, grimacing, clearly on the same wavelength as him. Though, they’re all ultimately unbothered.

“He’s like Todoroki during the beginning of the year,” Kirishima summarizes rather effectively, now stabbing his pencil through his grimy apple slice.

“Trueeeeee,” Kaminari yawns.

“I mean. He’s pretty tame in comparison to like. Bakugou.” Mineta murmurs curiously, pouring himself a glass of grape juice in an defiant act of cannibalism.

Mineta looks up quickly, as if realizing what he just said.

“Did you just compare _me_ to that fucker? That fucker whose corpse-ass attitude stinks worse than the words coming out of his fucking mouth?” Bakugou proclaims, sitting upright in his seat, indignant.

Absent-mindedly, Kaminari appreciatively thinks about how tame Bakugou is at the moment. Just a couple months ago, he probably wouldn't have even said anything, and just straight up murked Mineta in the head using a straw like blow dart.

“You know. Lelouch. He’s weird.” Jirou stretches.

“Well duh. He’s from Texas,” Kaminari snorts. She shrugs at that, clearly unbothered by the situation. 

“He feels weird.” Mineta exclaims brashly.

“Hey, don’t talk about my bro like that,” Kirishima gasps, having already adopted Lelouch. Whether or not Lelouch is actually aware of that, Kaminari doesn’t know.

“Nah, listen up, short stacks, you dumbass bitch," Bakugou jerks his chin at Mineta. "I actually fucking agree with you for once. But it’s like.” He hesitates.

They all look at each other hesitantly, a mutual understanding stringing the fragmented components of their class’ shared brain cell into one complete thought: “Texas,” they say in unpracticed unison of agreement.

* * *

He doesn’t look like himself.

Of course, when he entered this world, it felt like they were _different_ . In a manner he couldn’t explain. Everyone looked _human_ , looked _real_ , _were_ real. 

Are real.

But they all had a differing undertone of humanness. As if they had a different font- a different style of the same characteristics Lelouch could find in his world.

Which is why as he stares into the grimy bathroom mirror, he doesn't see himself. This is the first time since he landed in this world that he passed by a reflective surface, and it makes him wonder. Because everyone else saw this face, saw this as _him_ , _thinks_ this is him; Lelouch doesn't even know the person in the mirror.

Something cracks _violently_ in his ribcage, anger splitting his bones lengthwise, splintering them outwards, catching onto each breath that passes by like bristles.

He looks at the mirror, and doesn't recognize the eyes slinking back to him, despite understanding and _personifying_ the creeping and dull gaze that his reflection wears. But, the only way he can feel confident that this is him, is by lifting his hands and seeing the person staring back do the exact same.

He’s _still_ himself. Purple irises, black hair, sharp nose and equally sharp eyes.

But none of those distinct features are _his_. It’s as if all those familiar traits were carved out with a different technique.

He’s not himself. He takes a step back, and his buckling knees nearly give away like a baby deer taking its first steps.

_It’s fine._ It’s fine.

 _But it’s not._ A _show_ . They talked about Lelouch, about C.C., about _geass_ , like it was a _show_. He swallows.

But he’s _very much real_ , he knows that, he’s not two-dimensional and his sentience _does_ expand into abstract thinking he’s _real_ he’s _human_ he’s not a character-

And as his brain flinches, he leans forward against the wet sink rim. Okay. Fine. _So what if Lelouch is a character in this world?_ A show? That doesn’t make his dimension any less real, any less full of real people who feel real emotions and who have real relationships. In this reality they may just be a historical retelling, portrayed as fiction-

But Lelouch knows otherwise. There’s no point in getting riled up over something he can confidently counter.

He glances at the mirror again, this time, subconsciously not making eye contact with the reflection glancing back.

This feels just like when he shot Alois.

Then, almost jauntingly, he thinks with mad amusement, _so I guess that means in the end, I don’t really feel anything._

Stomach acid coats his windpipe like expired mouthwash, and he chokes it out in loops of saliva.

* * *

“He’s not coming back.”

“Oh shit. Did I scare him by being a weeb?” Kaminari muses, unbothered despite the context of his words.

“No. It’s definitely because you tried to feed him that,” Bakugou scowls, gesturing towards the sad bowl on the table.

* * *

“What’s this?”

“A movie night!”

Lelouch visibly and viscerally cringes. He doesn’t do socializing, and he doesn’t do movies.

But like.

 _What else can I do here?_ He can’t hear C.C.

That’s the most concerning thing so far. He hates relying on others, however, C.C. is actually dependable, solely because she’s the only one with plot armor as the universe’s main character.

So without her, frustratingly enough, there’s really not much he can do on his own. _So. Movie. Really,_ why not?

He’s been here long enough for him to sit through three different classes, eat _lunch_ with the children, then nearly eat wet limestone with the children, have an entire identity _and_ existential crisis (and no matter what people say, those two emotional breakdowns over self-control and orientation are sourced in different areas), and now it’s approaching evening given the darkening skies from outside.

A movie is perhaps just two hours max. Or at least the movies in his world were around that length. Whatever. The movie will still be shorter than his unending crawl of missing identity.

“We should watch _Code Geass_ , I mean, Lelouch is _basically_ a Lelouch cosplayer-” Kaminari begins brightly.

“That’s weird, stop saying that. Besides. Lelouch is a foreign name, we don’t know if it isn’t uncommon from where he’s from.” Jirou pauses, eyes sliding over to him, lingering on him, and he narrows his gaze back.

Jirou, this entire time, has been wholly unpleasant in the sense that she absolutely Fears No god and disregards every social custom that he’s pretty sure most cultures would organize underneath their standards of baseline respect. 

“Right. Lelouch is very common.” Lelouch improvises.

“I mean. Even if his name was uncommon, I mean. Whatcha gonna do about it? It’s Texas.” Jirou says, with the air of a person resigned to the existence of themselves and of reality’s nature and unfathomable course. She then glances at him, unashamedly obvious about it, almost as if analysing him. “Sit down.”

“What.”

“Next to me, obviously.” Jirou scoffs. Then, quieter: “stupid.” _There it is again._ “I let three people sit next to me during movies, either for the aesthetic, or because they’re not annoying. One is Momo, the other is Tokoyami, and the third is Bakugou.”

He takes a second. “Bakugou fits into neither category-”

“And I’m definitely not letting you sit next to me because of the latter.” She finishes, talking over him as if he didn’t even say anything in the first place.

“Thanks,” he finally says, resigned to her personality. 

“It’s the punk vibes, you know.” She continues even though he didn’t even know there was anything to continue. “But when we’re a group, they’re all different energies. Like Tokoyami is just straight up Edgar Allen Poeing his life-”

“What.”

“And Bakugou is punk rock who pretends like he’s grunge but really just isn’t metal.”

“Fuck off.”

“See, no bite.” She sighs, as if Bakugou doesn’t look like he wants to concave her skull in with the television remote.

“Guys. Horror movie time,” says the fit of floating people clothes. 

Lelouch doesn’t even stare by this point. Invisibility isn’t even the strangest thing out of this bunch. 

“I’m fine with that,” Tokoyami says, settling on the other side of Lelouch, and Lelouch, surprisingly enough, finds himself less bothered by it than he normally would’ve by physical contact. Probably because Tokoyami is indisputably one of the least troubling characters he’s run into today. “But D.S. doesn’t like horror movies,” and as if proving his point, his sentient shadow casts herself over the television, her simplistic two-dimensional facial features screwed in obvious horror. 

“Oh. Is it.” A mild smirk. “Time for Bakugou to pretend like he’s not scared and then get scared again?” States the quiet boy that Lelouch isn’t sure what to make of, the one with a rather odd combination of hair colours, seated on the floor beside Midoriya.

“Fuck off. Listen up, you molding clump of pubes-”

“Bakugou, please.” 

“I’ll fucking shear your stupid, Kool-Aid dyed hair _and_ your facial features with nail clipper the size of your brain-”

“Bakugou, _please_.”

“Round Face, _shut up_ I don’t want to hear pleading from your ass-”

And it was at this moment that he made coincidental eye contact with the kid that Bakugou was unceremoniously ragging on.

And it was like a flicker of understanding crosses between them.

* * *

“Oh geez, it was the _dad_ all along?” Uraraka gapes. As if the plot was _that_ convoluted. If anything, it was cheap with poorly stitched characters.

The others appeared to enjoy it, though. Then again, they do appear to be simple, as well.

“I mean. What would you even _do_ in that situation?” Kirishima gasps. “If your dad was a serial killer?”

“Kill him.” Lelouch suggests from experience.

“What? But like. While I get like, you know, he’s a shit person, but. The main character doesn’t even have any conflict about stabbing him,” Mina states, undeterred, eyes flashing underneath the glow of the television, which is the only source of light illuminating the darkened room. 

“Oh. Understandable,” the strange boy (then again, Tokoyami is _half bird-)_ states. 

He and Lelouch make unwarranted eye contact _again._

“Yeah, well, your dad’s a special case, Daddy Issues™,” Mina gestures dismissively, squinting hard at the screen. Well, it’d be weirder if questionable fathers weren’t a universal constant. 

“Hey, ‘say shit, get hit,’ dad had it coming,” Bakugou barks noisily over his crunching on peanuts.

Lelouch squirms in his seat, uncomfortable with the combined body heat of everyone gathered in the living room. On the other side of Jirou is the boy with many arms, crowding around them, each arm feeling like an uncomfortable heat bottle. 

And Lelouch just doesn’t like physical contact. It’s uncomfortably sticky, too much friction, and overall unpleasant.

“Like. Imagine. Your own dad wants to _kill_ you.” Kirishima mumbles glumly, words muffled against the palm of his hand clapped against his mouth.

“Oh. I don’t have to imagine.” Two-toned states casually, and Lelouch jerks his head around, stiffening slightly.

“Imaging having to imagine.” Lelouch mumbles, his spontaneous impulsiveness spawned from the other boy's comment, as well from the confidence that his words would only get lost in the shuffling around him, yet, he freezes as the other boy’s head snaps over so fast that his head became a pinwheel of red and white.

Kirishima stares at him with parental disapproval.

As if Lelouch isn’t immune to that already.

“You guys…” Midoriya’s tone trails off lightly, “doing okay?”

“Nah. Gloomy fuckers like them will always think drinking black coffee is a personality trait and apathy is a healthy coping mechanism and justification for being a shit person.” Bakugou takes a viscious crunch of a nut. “Just fucking ignore them.”

“I’m not apathetic,” Lelouch adds, rather insulted that the boy is attempting to psychoanalyze him when he looks like he attends weekly therapy sessions for anger management. 

I don’t drink coffee.” The boy states, somehow, voice paralleling Lelouch’s own casually offended tone. 

“Fuck off, Ronald McDonald. Just because you wear a clown wig, doesn’t mean you have to fucking act like one,” Bakugou begins, straining his neck over to shove his face directly into the boy’s.

“Guys, you’re literally missing the scene, the dad’s head is getting blown off with a chainsaw.” Tokoyami gripes, being the one who was truly invested in the movie even though his shadow, like an upset dog with abandonment issues, had thoroughly wrecked the mattress with lacerations, and left a puddle of black ink near the main room’s table.

Lelouch wants to go home.

He really doesn't _have_ a home to return to, but earth is better than the state of this reality.

* * *

“Wait. He’s staying here? Like literally staying here?” Bakugou rudely jabs his chest, and Lelouch arches backwards, glowering at the boy. And he’s tall- but Lelouch is most definitely taller. 

However, the height difference doesn’t appear to deter the other at all, as his lips ripple back to reveal jagged teeth bowed into a snarl, his jugular pulsating as he cranes his head upwards from his slouch to glare at Lelouch. Clearly, Bakugou doesn’t have shame. 

Lelouch simply peers down, his tongue kissing the back of his teeth.

He can’t stand people like him the most.

“Bitchboy doesn’t even pay taxes,” Bakugou leers, and attempts to prod his middle finger at Lelouch’s chest once more, but Lelouch simply leans even farther back, bristling at his lack of manners. “And he wants to _live_ here?”

Well. He’s _right_.

But his manner of speaking is so condescending, that Lelouch thinks he’d rather let him flounder in his own crap, than refute and entangle himself in such a pointless conflict.

“Can we do that?” Tokoyami begins, from where he’s standing in front of a lamp to cast a larger shade behind him for D.S. to recuperate herself within, even though Lelouch is _pretty_ sure he’s seen D.S. actively defy the laws of basic science more than once. “Like. Legally.”

They all look at each other, while Lelouch stares at the giant rock candy of a man who’s currently crowding a shedding bird to his chest. Lelouch didn’t see him while the movie was playing. Well. Okay.

He’s long ago stopped questioning this dimension.

“I mean.” Kaminari states from where he’s noisily crunching the rest of his rice. “Does that matter?”

Tokoyami falls quiet at that, staring deep into the lamp, the artificial light source bright and fake, reflecting off his empty eyes.

Okay then.

“I think it does.” Jirou says. “Only because then it makes us breaking the rules look cooler.”

“Breaking rules for that purpose is lame.” Bakugou says snippishly.

"How is your rice crunchy." Kirishima asks Kaminari. 

Jirou looks Bakugou in the eye. “Complain about my aesthetic for breaking rules and I’ll break your neck, boy.”

Quiet falls amongst all of them.

It’s short lived.

Bakugou takes a step back as Bakugou lunges past him and automatically goes for Jirou’s throat, while she bristles back.

Lelouch looks away so that he can’t be held liable for attempted murder.

He hopes Jirou wins, though.

“You.” Peppermint states, and Lelouch blinks, glancing over in acknowledgement. “Sleep with me. I have a futon.” 

And he wants to say that he doesn't _know_ him, doesn't even know his name really, _but._ Lelouch really can’t deny such an offer because he’s essentially _homeless_ , and the thing is, while Lelouch is utterly convinced that this population of students and teachers _must_ be an accurate representation of their entire country (because _how else would a legitimized school have such a staff)_ , he can’t guarantee that the rest of the town would be as easy to manipulate as the rest of these f̷̱̮̈͛́͒̉̂͝ḙ̵̡̛̛͔̹̯̼͕̼̤͊̀́̓̈́͗͛̍̊͗̇̚͝r̸̪̥̯̺̞̭̮̒͑̀͊̈̊̾͋́̒̊̚͜a̶̬͕̞͙̿͐ľ̶̥͒̄̑͆̈́̄ĩ̵̧͉͈̲̲͙̏͋ͅͅz̸̼̪͊̒͐͜e̸̠̝͉̒̓͘d̸̦̻́͌̚ people.

_Take what you can get_.

He glances at the boy.

“Why? Todoroki, no offense, but you’re not like. Pretty open.” Uraraka says, not unkindly. Her filter has seemingly been utterly deconstructed after watching the movie.

“You're not friendly, dipshit,” Bakugou barks out a blunt translation of Uraraka’s words from where he’s struggling to headlock Jirou, whose teeth have latched onto his forearm. “Don’t try to act like you are,” he grunts, anchoring down as Jirou jabs her knee upwards into his gut.

“Todoroki, you’re very pleasant company to be around,” Midoriya titters around Todoroki, who appears utterly unfazed (Lelouch wouldn't take any insult from Bakugou seriously, either, to be fair). “It’s just...this is rather unusual behaviour-”

“Don’t worry, I can tell, he’s like me,” Todoroki states boldly, and Lelouch recoils slightly, narrowing his eyes. They’re not the same.

Lelouch doesn’t know how to convey the distinct difference between him and the rest of humanity without sounding self-entitled or arrogant, but the thing is, the rest of humanity can selfishly cling onto the remnants of their own identity (and is it even selfish? It’s not. It’s really not, Lelouch is just- he’s just. _jealous),_ while he _can’t_ . And no one’s forcing him to, no one’s asking him to, so he has nobody to blame his sealed fate on _anyone_ but himself, but he can’t help but feel resentful and hateful and-

This boy wants to say they’re the same?

Lelouch swallows something hard and unfair and cruel. It’s not fair if he lashes out on others for decisions he chose to make.

“Are you willing?” Todoroki nods nonchalantly.

Lelouch glances at him. Then shrugs. “Only if you are.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyways, someone in the previous comment went 'mormon cults' so watch th next chapter include that. 
> 
> you already know this is ooc bc i'm straight up injecting western media pop culture humour into a story revolving japan and alt. japan like it's nothing more than tiktok and alt tiktok.
> 
> !!! guys i'm. idk man :I i have so many big plans for this fic but the thing is i literally don't know what the fuck i'm doing. 
> 
> anyways i kinda wanna be like,,, include povs from ppl from lelouch's side such as lelouch, euphemia, cornelia, kallen, shirley, suzaku etc, basically everyone going like "wait where the fuck did lelouch/zero go what the fuck"

**Author's Note:**

> guys talk to me!! except im rlly slow at responding;jioodfjif sorry  
> \-- ig: @lukewarm_oj (i post low quality art every once in a while if ur interested ;)  
> \-- twitter: @strawbrained


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